Clyde's Last Kids

I took these pictures a few days ago but when I looked at them today I realized just how big the babies have gotten.  They're only two months old, and they're just about the same size as Silkie Sue!  The oldest is still hoping that one of these will be a rooster just like Clyde, and I have to say that I'm hoping for the same thing.

Purple Potatoes?

When I purchased potato starters last spring, I had seen a box for purple potatoes.  I'd never even heard of such a thing but decided to plant them.  We harvested them a week or two ago and today I finally cooked some of them.

They tasted a little different from the other potatoes, but not enough for me to be able to describe it.  We'll definitely plant more next spring if I see them again.

Here are pictures from when we harvested them:  Harvesting the fall garden

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Sweet Potato Pie

We've had frost the last two morning and the tops of all of the sweet potato plants had turned black.  I knew I had to harvest the sweet potatoes soon so I went out and dug them up today.  I've never grown sweet potatoes before and have never seen them harvested, so this was a learning experience.

We managed to get a 5 gallon bucket full of them.  Many were small, but there were some large ones too.  Next year I'm going to plant more of them and I'm going to find a way to contain them from spreading so much as I'm sure there are many still in the garden that I didn't find since they'd spread so far.

I think this only makes me want a root cellar even more so that I can properly store these long term.

Poor Faith and Her Poor Ear

We'd seen that Faith's hematoma ear was swelling more and my heart was sinking as I admitted that she would need to have it drained by the vet and it wasn't going to heal on it's own.

This was a few days ago

When I left for work on Friday morning, it was a little more swollen, but I never would have expected to see what we saw when I came home from work just a few hours later.  When I walked in the door I saw her ear and she immediately started shaking her head.  I sat and held her ear while I called the vet and after a few minutes I realized that holding her ear in place was actually letting her relax and stop shaking hear head.  So I ran to dig out a scarf while the oldest held her ear and we tied her ear up flat.

She looks miserable, but I could tell she preferred this as compared to feeling that huge dangly ear

 Once we got to the vet, I decided to take a few pictures to document how bad it had gotten.

Pictures of the eggs never get old for me

It looks like the girls are finally using more than two nesting boxes.  We found eggs in three of the boxes this week and have caught three girls nesting during the day in different boxes.

And here is a picture of the 9 eggs I collected one day this week.  It is always so cool to see the different colors.

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My Silly Girls

The weather has quickly turned and it's freezing outside.  I decided to snap some pictures of the animals and Kelly decided to make it easy for me.

Meanwhile, Carrie was pushing her head into my rear end.  She wasn't being aggressive, she just wanted to nuzzle up.

Pumpkin Seeds and Chickens

I tossed all of the pumpkin seeds in the dehydrator last week and when they were done I decided to take them out to the chickens.

My patience has finally paid off because all of the birds will eat out of my hand now.

Buffy's in Solitary Confinement

Buffy has been molting and looking pretty ragged.  She's even lost quite a bit of weight and has me a little worried.

I've read that giving a molting chicken more protein is important and I know that they can get picked on more by the other chickens because the new feathers is something interesting to pick at.  So I decided to put her in a crate inside the coop for a few days.  Each morning I made her some scrambled eggs and we mixed in some dried meal worms. 

I'm sure she wasn't happy to be alone in there, but I think it was good for her to have some solitude.  

Several days later she still looks ragged, but I can see the new feathers growing in so I let her out to free range for a bit.  Her ragged look was only more obvious to me then, next to the healthy looking birds.

Not another one

I got a text message from the oldest when I was driving home from work today.

He said there was a duck hanging out with our chickens.

No!

No more animals. No more pets.  No more.  I am trying to be responsible and get some other projects taken care of before I start taking on more animals, especially animals of a different kind.

When I got home, the duck was waddling around the yard, and I have to admit it was pretty darn cute.

When I went out tonight it was on top of a wood crate near the goat pen and I just know that something would come snatch it at night.  So the oldest and I went out there and were able to catch it after a few minutes.

Another Weird Egg

Check out this crazy one.  It looks like it just didn't have time to finish closing shut.  I accidentally touched the middle when I set it down and it broke, letting some of the egg white through.  

Faith has a Hematoma

Faith has a hematoma in her right ear.  This girl never expresses that she's in pain and a few nights ago when she got up into bed I grabbed her ears like I always do to pet her and she yelped.  I jumped up and switched on the light to check her out and saw that her right ear has this huge swollen bubble.  I did some googling and found out that it is a burst blood vessel in her ear and that's a sac of blood.

In the right ear you can see a line from the tip of her ear and then down the middle of it, above that is the entire bubble

I took her to the vet as they say that hematoma's in dogs are usually caused by excessive scratching or shaking due to ear infections, but they said her ears were perfect.  In fact they said she looked like she was in overall great health for a 10 year old dog.  They did say that at some point she must have torn her ACL in one of her rear legs and they confirmed that her joints are getting sore from arthritis, but they didn't see any major concerns.

The options for treatment are surgery, draining the sack several times until it stops re-filling with fluid, or waiting it out and eventually the body would absorb the blood and her ear would shrivel up like a cauliflower ear.  At this point, we decided to go with waiting it out.

Someone wants some peace and quiet

This little girl has been "missing" from the coop every night for over a week.  Each time, I find her alone in the "guinea coop".  Each time, I scoop her up as she fights back, and carry her into the big coop.  Poor Girl.

I think she needs a name since she has been standing out from the rest of her flock.

Apples and Storage

I woke up this morning knowing we had to get those apples taken care of.  It turns out that making apple sauce is really easy!  Luckily a neighbor loaned me a sieve to attach to my mixer and we ran to Target to buy a grinder so this made it even easier.

The first recipe that we tried only had us core the apples before tossing them in a pot for awhile and then tossing them through the sieve.

The first batch was a little thin compared to what I like, but man it tasted good.

This was the stuff that the sieve filtered out.  It was all the seeds and peels with the juice squeezed out.  Pretty interesting.

I even realized that I could sit in the living room and peel while I watched the football games.  The oldest snapped a picture of me hard at work, with Faith just waiting for me to toss her some apple peels.

We put a lot of peels in the dehydrator with a sprinkling of sugar and cinnamon and I'll slice up the rest of the apples and dry them as well.

We managed to get through a full box of apples (40 pounds) and about 15 pounds from the second box.  I already told the woman that we bought them from that I think I want another box before our order from another source comes in next week.

Once we had all of that done, I finally enlisted the boys' help to carry the boxes of jars down to the basement storage room.  Last week, the oldest and I built this shelf.  It's not quite done yet because I need another 2x4 to finish the lowest shelf, but we were able to fill one shelf with all of the tomato products and we put the jams and peaches on the top shelf.

Then I moved another shelf into the room to fit all of the other jars.  I'm not sure if I realized just how many things I had canned this summer until I started filling the shelves.

Peaches

Pickles 

Some of the apple sauce and canned apple chunks

Pie Fillings 

I plan to can a lot more apple slices and then to do some apple pie filling with the next batches.  It may look like we have a lot, but really it doesn't seem like it would last very long with these two boys and considering how many cases of jars I purchased during a recent clearance sale, I have a lot of work to do still.  We'll be building a couple more shelves in that room soon.

More manageable chicken numbers

We've known for about a month that we had too many roosters.  I originally thought that we should have about 5-8 hens for each rooster, but then read that you should have about 10 hens per rooster.  We had only had about 20 hens in all, and when Clyde was still around, we had 9 boys.  While I would rather give the boys to homes that would keep them as pets, there just aren't homes for them since everyone is dealing with the same issues that we had.

Every week or so, someone would pull up our driveway and ask if we sold chickens.  I would always tell them that we had a few roosters that we needed to get rid of, and if they promised to kill them as quick and painlessly as possible, I would sell them.  It was always hard for me because I felt so guilty giving the birds to someone that was going to eat them, but I knew I couldn't keep them, and I didn't have any other options.

After a few visits from strangers, we sold our last birds yesterday.  The man came on Friday asking if we sold birds but he needed someone that would do the killing and plucking, I managed to find someone that would do it on Saturday, so he came back for them.  He asked us to lead him over to her house and since I was curious to see where the woman lived, I went along.

I've met the woman a few times and she was the one that helped to band the goats last spring, but I'd never been to her house.

While they killed and plucked the birds, I stayed pretty far away but the set up was interesting as long as I didn't think about it happening to a live animal.

I did get pictures of the equipment, but even as I write this, I feel bad to post them.

So, we are down to 4 roosters, with plans to get rid of one more to someone that wants to breed him.

We have two pure bred Buff Orpington roosters, one of the larger black and white roosters (that doesn't crow as often as the one we got rid of), and the gray rooster.

There is one more hen that I think we need to get rid of and we need to see what Silkie Sue's current chicks grow up to be, but hopefully things will go smoothly from here on out.

I know where two of the votes AGAINST rain are coming from

It rained for three days without stopping.  We had to have had over 4 inches at our house based on a container that was sitting outside and dry before the rain started that was later half full.  

This was how I found Carrie and Kelly every time I went outside.

They may have been dry, but they were not happy.

Apples coming out of our ears

Apples are the next thing that I planned to can, and probably the last thing that I would have a chance to can before all of the fresh produce is gone.  I ordered 4 bushels of apples from a fundraiser at the youngest's school but they won't be coming in for another week or two.  Then I heard about an apple festival fundraiser that was happening about thirty minutes away from us, and when I asked if they had apples, they confirmed that they did.  

So off we went.

The oldest was not happy when we got there and I told him what we were getting.  He was more unhappy when I told him that we would be canning all of these apples this weekend.  

We bought two boxes like this, a foot deep.

This will be the practice round for when the other orders arrive.  Wish us luck.

The end of the garden season is near

Unfortunately the garden has been neglected over the last few weeks with me going back to work and being overwhelmed with that, their activities, and volunteering at the youngest's school.  So tonight I thought I'd go out just to grab the tomatoes that were all over the tomato plants.

Before I even made it to the tomatoes, I was pulling up some carrots.  The oldest left the gate open last week and the goats got out, and then got into my garden.  They ate the tops off at least half of the carrots so I thought I'd try to pull up what I could.

Then I pulled up one parsnip.  The tops look really good, but the parsnip was pretty small so I'm going to do some reading.   I think they don't get harvested for another month.

And then there was my celery that doesn't look like celery.

I finally made it to the tomatoes and quite a few were split open.  I'm guessing we dipped below freezing one night this week.

I figured while I was out there, we might as well knock the potato cages over and see what we could find.

Purple potatoes!  Really!  Even when we cut them open, they will be purple inside!

We hosed them off before we headed inside and I laid them out on the counter, along with a couple onions I pulled out of the pot by our door.

I suppose I should be happy to have gotten this much, but it really feels like so little.  I've been planning the garden for next year for the last month or so.  As long as each year gets bigger and better, I suppose I can't get too mad at myself.

Feeding Frenzy

Almost every day this week I have taken some time to go outside and feed the birds. 

I think the joy these girls bring to me is clear on my face.

I'm sure I thought "chicken people" were nuts before I owned any, but I just can't explain how peaceful and calming it is to sit with them and watch them just be.

The good news is that almost all of them are now willing to eat out of my hand.

The bad news is that the girls seem to think they can just walk into our mud room to look for more treats.  (Please ignore the mess!)

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